1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an exhaust device and an image forming device including such an exhaust device and more particularly relates to an exhaust device in which a curved portion is formed in an exhaust duct and an image forming device including such an exhaust device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an image forming device using an electrophotographic system such as a facsimile, a printer or a copying machine, in order to reduce the discharge of substances (which may hereinafter be referred to as “unnecessary substances”) such as odor, ozone and ultra-fine particles produced in the process of image formation out of the device main body, an exhaust device including a filter is provided.
An exhaust duct may be curved due to the reduction in the size of the exhaust device, restraints on the structure of the device main body or the like. When the curved portion is provided on an upstream side in a direction of flow of a gas with respect to the filter, the flow of the gas within the exhaust duct is disturbed to unbalance the amount of the gas flowing through the filter, with the result that the function of the filter may be insufficiently achieved.
Hence, in order to uniformize the flow of the gas into the filter, various types of technology have so far been proposed in which a flow control unit is provided on the upstream side of the filter (for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication Nos. 2011-164510, 04-242271 and 60-169620).